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‘Congress is ready to face elections even if electoral rolls are not revised’

Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit the district

on Friday

Raichur: The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) has urged the Governor to take immediate steps to release compensation to rain-affected families and initiate relief measures in all the affected districts in the State.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, KPCC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge said that the unseasonable rain in the past two days had caused havoc in several northern districts in the State.

He said that he found that normal life in Bijapur, Bagalkot, Belgaum, Dharwad, Gadag and Raichur districts had been disrupted by the rain, when he was touring the districts in connection with the proposed visit of AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi. Apart from loss of lives, several houses had been damaged and standing crops on hundreds of acres of land destroyed. The administrations in these districts had yet begin assessing the losses, he said.

Mr. Kharge said that there was an urgent need to implement relief measures in the affected districts and release compensation to all the affected families. The district administrations concerned assess the loss of public and private properties and standing crops and submit their reports to the Governor, he said.

Mr. Kharge said that he would personally meet the Governor on Tuesday to inform him about the prevailing situation in the rain-affected districts and urge him to speed up relief measures.

On the decision of the Election Commission to hold elections to the Assembly in May, he said that his party had urged the commission to take steps to set right the lapses found in the electoral rolls before announcing the calendar of events to hold elections. The commission had agreed that the existing electoral rolls contained about 58 lakh bogus names. These names should be eliminated from the list before holding elections, Mr. Kharge said and added that his party was ready to face elections even if the commission wanted to hold the elections without reviewing the rolls.

Mr. Kharge said that during his inspection of the Rajiv Gandhi Super-speciality Hospital in Raichur on Monday, he found that the Government had failed to release grants to the hospital to reimburse the expenditure incurred in its functioning.

He said that the hospital was being managed jointly by the State Government and Apollo Hospitals where 40 per cent of the beds were reserved for the poor. However, the management of Apollo Hospitals had been facing a problem regarding the functioning of the hospital due to non-clearance of bills totalling Rs.6 crore.

Mr. Kharge said he would write to the Governor urging the release of grants to the management of Apollo Hospitals.

Ashok, president of the All India Youth Congress, told presspersons that Mr. Gandhi was expected to visit the district on Friday. He would visit some of the roadside villages between Lingsugur and Sindhanur, he added.